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    Blumenberg and Secularization: "Self-Assertion" and the Problem of Self-Realizing Teleology in History Laurence Dickey New German Critique, No. 41, Special Issue on the Critiques of the Enlightenment (Spring - Sommer, 1987), 151-165. Stable URL: fyp:flinks jstor-org/sici sici=0004-093X% 28198721 %2F22%200%IA4 1%ICLS1%IABAS%22AT%IE20.CO%SBL7 New German Criuque is currently published by New German Critique. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at fp (fw. jstor orglaboutitersihtml. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless You. have obtained prior permission, you ray not download an entire issue of &joumal or multiple copies of aricies, and You may use content in the ISTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use Please contact the publisher cegarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at bhupsferwer,jstor.org/joumals/nge html Each copy of any part of a JSTOR twansmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sercen or lnted page of such transmission. ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving.a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding ISTOR, please contact jstor-info@ jstor.org. hup:thrww jstor.orgy Fei Ape 23 11:52:08 2004 Blumenberg and Secularization: “Self-Assertion” and the Problem of Self-Realizing Teleology in History by Laurence Dickey Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy ofthe Modern Age, trans., Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983), 677pp. Readers of New German Critique no longer require an introduction to Hans Blumenberg’s The Legitimacy of the Madern Age to rake sense of it [henceforth, The Legitimacy}. This journal first drew attention to the importance of Blumenberg’s book several years ago! Since then, The Legitimacy has been widely reviewed and acclaimed by some very able and well-known scholars (e., William Bouwsma, Martin Jay, and Richard Rorey} In these reviews, superlatives abound — words like “subile,” “rich”; and “imaginative” are repeatedly used in celebrating themerits of Blumenberg's work? ‘True, the book has also been described as “cumbersome,” “mad- ly difficult,” and a“'slow” read.* Ithas also been criticized for pract ing “ald fashioned Geistesgeschichte,"s for being utterly indifferent to ‘“matcrialisticexplanations of historical change,”* for ignoring “the con- tribution of religious thought since the Reformation to philosophical di 1. See Robert M. Wallace, “Progress, Secularization, and Modemity: The Lowith- Blurmenberg Debate,” Naw Geman Critque 22 (Winter 1981}: 63-79; Robert Wallace, “introduction to Blumemberg,” New German Critique 82 (Spring-Summer, 1984): 98° 108; Hlans Bliumenberg, "Ta Bring Myth wo an Rnd,” New Geran Crtigue 32 (Spring- Summer, 1984); 109-146, 2. See William J. Bouwsma, Joumal of Modem Hitoy 56 (1984): 698-701; Marin Jay, Hitory and Thairy 24 (1988: 188-196; and Richard Rorey, “Agains: Belatedness," Unpublished Ms. (1983): 117 3. See, respectively: Jay, 185, Rory, 18, Bousesma, 700, Jay 192, Bouwsmna 701 and Jay 193, “4. Bouwsma 700; Jay 185, Rory 18, 5 Bouwsma 700" Rory 4 6 Jay 194. 30 152 BlumenhingandSeeuarizatien discourse,” and for presenting a “Whiggish” conception of history.* Nevertheless, most reviewers would agree with Rorry’s judgement thar Blumemberg's “scholarship is overwhelming,” and the “originality” of the book beyond question.* As Bouwsma similarly put it, the book “compels a reader to understand in new ways almost everything on which ictouches. "8 Although The Legitimacy touches on many subjects its main aim isto re- babilicate the principles of inquiry chat were meant to govern modern science. Crucial inthis regard are the historical roles Blumenberg assigns the Renaissance and the Enlightenment in the developmentof the mod. cern scientific spirit. On the one hand, Blumenberg celebrates the theoretical curiosity exhibited during the Renaissance. That curiosity, he argues, constitutes the essence of science. Blumenberg reminds us, however, thatto understand modern science — what ican doand, more importantly, what it cannotdo — we need to remember that theoretical ‘curiosity was a disposition of mind that emerged in very specific histori- cal circumstances. The disposition he has in mind developed in the lich century when Ockhamism pushed the notion af God! stranscendencero its logical limit and, by so doing, precipicaed a crisis of confidence among Western Christians as to the order and intelligibility of the uni- verse. Paradoxically, the crisis dialectically prepared the way for what Rorty, paraphrasing Blumenberg, has called ““Baconian pragmatism, the attiende that says Who cares haw things look to God? Let us find out howtheycan be made to work for us’.”! According to Blumenberg, the interplay between religious skepticism and the liberation of theoretical curiosity ushered in the scientificepoch inan historical sense, and che modern epoch in a conceptual sense. Un- der the auspices of Baconianism the modern world was introduced to the twin propositions that knowledge was power and that human beings ‘were responsible for securing knowledge about the world in which they lived (as we shall see, there isa religious aspect to this that Blumenberg does not adequately confront). As Blumenberg sees it, che Enlight- enmentthen organized theoretical curiosity into the institutional reality Bouwsma 701. Rony 15.17 Rory 18-14 10. Bouvesma 701, 1. Rory & Fautence Dickey 153 ‘we recognize today as modern science. Icis this reality and the maderate spiric of inquiry that informs it that Blumenherg wishes to associate with modernity in general and with what he calls “self-assertion” in particular. During the Enlightenment, however, Blumenberg sees another dialectic at work (there is an obvious affinity here berween Blumenberg and the Frankfurt school}. In the process of providing science with institutional bases in society, some of the philosophes turned science into an ideology. Here Blumenberg identifies the “idea of progress” as the ideological carrier of scientistic pretension. ‘Against this “scientism,” Blumenberg argues that the Enlightenment’s association of science with the “inevitability” of progress perverted the notion of theoretical curiosity. Instead of governing the moder- ate goals of scientific inquiry and self-assertion theoretical curiosity became a prescription for absolute knowledge and for something Blumenberg refers to, pejoratively, as “human self-empowerment.” By promising more than it could deliver, science prepared the way for the 20th century's disenchantment with the world. Students of 20th century thought are familiar with che forms this dis- enchantment have taken — in Germany with Heidegger and in France wich the recent neo-skepcical revival. Just as surely, che same seudenits will perceive an affinity between the thrust of Blumenberg’s argument and Habermas’ endeavors to reconstitute reason so that it can once again serve the purposes of what Blumenberg calls “a rationality of hu mane consideration” (p.64). Be that as it may, the originality of The Le itimacy lies less in where it fits into 20th century patterns of thought than in the scholarly arguments it presents to explain haw science went awry. Arthe center of these arguments is Blumenberg's concern with what he calls the secularization/reaccupation thesis. In what follows, 1 shall give an accouncof this thesis and then raise same conceptual and historical questions about Blumenberg's presentation ofit. Atche simplest level, The Legitimacy attemprs to refute the arguments chatso-called “secularization theorists” have made about the modern world. Who were these theorists? Mainly qwentieth century German thinkers whom Blumenberg holds responsible for propagating two pemnicious propositions: in general, that “the modern world is to be understood as a result of the secularization of Christianity” (p. 25); and, in particular, that “modern historical consciousness is derived from the secularization of the Christian idea of the ‘salvation story” (p. BA Blumenbergend Secaleraetion 27). In Blumenberg’s view, these theorists, especially Karl Lawith, suc- ceeded in persuading a generation of German scholars that the secularization process “brought (Christian| prehistory (0 its logically necessary transformation and final form’ {p. 27). In chis context, the overall strategy of The Legitimacy is twofold: first, to call into question “the logic of continuity” (p. $79) that enabled Lawich eval. to explain “modernity” in terms of “the secularization of Christianiey” (p. 28}; and second, to demonstrate with specific reference to the concept of secularization just how the secularization theorists came to mistake an “alienation” of the content of Christianity for a “transformation” of it (pp. 16-18 and 28-29), By all accounts, Blumenberg was most successful in these end- eavors.!? Indeed, much of what he says about various forms of the secularization thesis (conveniently summarized pp. 15-15} is convinc- ing. Bur, on a deeper level, it seems, Blumenberg was uncomfortable with the implications of his own argument. For in the second edition of The Legetimacy (1978-1976; first ed., 1966), Blumenberg defended, re- vised and further expanded his views on secularization so as to take ac: count of sharp German cricicisms of the first edition. In doing this, as ‘we shall see, Blumenberg complicated as well as refined his argument, especially that which was developed in the first nine chapters of the book (i¢.,in Part I), Unlike Rorty, Ido not believe thar these chapcers — all of which deal with che concept of secularization — get the book offto “an unfortunately slow start.” True, non-German scholars may not be familiar with the criticism to which Blumenberg is responding inthe second edition of The Legitimacy. Butanyone who has worked with problems in the intellectual history of Christianity, especially in the ‘early modern period of European history, will appreciate the immpor- tance of the issues Blumenberg raises about “the phenomenon of secularization” in these chapters. It is around those issues that this re- view is organized. ‘There are several differenc dimensions to Blumenberg’s argument about secularization in The Legitimacy. To begin with, he notes the “in nocentconfidence” {p, 63) with which mostscholars use theconceptof secularization in their work. Everyone, Blumenberg says, “thinks he 12, For expe, Jy, 192, where Blmenberg i bow othe tclateavon dete ‘ it Rony 6 with dealing a “death LeurenceDidey 133 understands to a certain extent what is meant by the term ‘se- cularizacion’.” (p. 7) Blumenberg insists, however, that the specific meanings scholars assign to the term have varied greatly over the years, with the result chat today the modern conception of secularization is filled wich “ambiguiry” and imprecision (p. 22). He concedes, of course, chat there is something to the conventional wisdom chat equates secularization with “‘the cultural-political program of eman- cipation from all cheological and ecclesiastical dominance" (p. 6). He maintains, however, that beyond thatthereis very litle agreement asto what the term signifies. On the one hand, he points out, there are those who use secularization as a reproach to the modern world — which is co say, they identify secularization with the old lament “thatthe world gtows ever more worldly” (p. 16). On the other hand, there is the equally familiar conception of secularization as the process that gave the modern world its autonomy and legitimacy vis-a-vis what came be fore. Between these antithetical views of secularization, each of which as- sociates the secularization process with discontinuity in history, Blu- ‘menberg identifies anather view which operates on a much more so- phisticated conceptual level, a level on which secularization is pres: ented as a process in the service of the fulfillment of Christian values in history. Or, to use one of Blumenberg’s formulations, on this level sec- ularization isinterpreted as “itself a providential (process)" (p.7). Inthis version, cheidea of “inner secularization,” ahighly ingenious notion developed by T. Luckmana, figures prominently. Simply put, the inner secularization thesis holds that secularization should be understood not so much as a process of religious “dissolution” as one involving the “transformation” of religious modes of thought and value into new and less obviously (i.c., “invisible”} religious social and cultural forms (pp. 9, 16). The argument is that since che inception of, Christianity there has been a gradual “displacemencof responsibility” {p. 16) for the direction of religious action from ecclesiastical institu- tions to the individual. With this transformation, man’s competence and responsibility for realizing religious values in history substantially increased even while his surface involvement with ecclesiastical insti- tutions decreased. Thus, the the process that appeared to be leading to the dissolution of religious values in history was, in fact, lading to their transformation and realization — which is to say, the secularization process put man in a position to re-divinize the world in an objective 156 Bluwenbergand Secutrication sense while he actualized essential aspects of his own religious person- ality in a subjective sense. Ac bottom, it is this version of the secularization thesis chat Blu- menberg wishes to contest. He does so in two different buc related ways, First, Blumenberg does not scruple ro use the argument that the teligious notion of evolving human responsibility in history ‘is proba: bly atheistic” (p. 58}, a charge which he thinks deprives the inner secu- larization thesis, in its form as a theology of history, ofits religious pre- tensions. Secondly, and as a corollary of the first argument, Blumenberg ‘works his criticism of this theology of history into a critique of modern philosophies of history in general. He claims, for example, that most nineteenth cencury philosophies of history were indirect and cunning forms of theology (pp. 57-58, 120). For each, in its own way, was “absolutist” (p. 60) — thatiis, each tried “to rescue God's goodness” for mankind (p. 58) by making the lateer an agent whose collective ca- pacity included “rotal competence” for what happened in the world (pp. 58-66). That pretension, Blumenberg implies, expressed iesel many areas of modern science as well, where ic took the form of “seientism”" in general and of faith in “universal reason” in particular (p.24). According to Blumenberg, it is the excessive confidence modern thinkers placed in the competency of human agency in history that caused the modern age, initially, to ‘miscarry” (p. 60). As Blumenberg, sees it, che modern age's obsession with its own autonomy disposed ‘many modern thinkers (o make man totally responsible for the human condition in history. Consequently, those thinkers, whom Blu- menberg separates from cruly enlightened thinkers, fele obliged to answer “the ‘great questions’ that throughout history and with un- ‘changing urgency [have] occupied human curiosity” (p. 65) In this con- text, Blumenberg argues, “carry-over” questions from previous ages insinuated themselves into modern thought (pp. 65-66). As Blumenberg put it: “The modern age’s readiness to inherit such a mortgage of prescribed questions and ro acceptas its own the obliga- rion to pay itoff goes along way coward explaining its intellectual his- cory” (p. 68). Instead of setting their own agenda, these moderns uncritically reaccupied the “vacant answer positions” of earlier ages (p. 69), with the result chat a continuity of development between the old and new made it appear as if the modern were but a secularized Lawerce ie 157 version of Christian values. Icis, of course, co this continuity of development that the secu- larization theorists are referring when they make the case for the pervasive presence of Christian values in modem thought. Itis precisely at this point, though, that Blumenberg uses his “reaccupation thesis” «0 make his mostimportant criticism of the secularization theory. His con- tention is chat che secularization theorists, who establish a continuity of development between Christian and modem values by way of the inner secularization thesis, have mistaken a"“reoccupation” fora “transforma- tion” (p. 60). That being the case, they have not produced, to Blumenberg’s satisfaction anyway, evidence of wansformation in a “substantialistic” sense (p. 29}. According to Blumenberg, they must do that both to avoid theewin horns of the dissolution dilemmaand ro make the continuity argument a success. The reoccupation thesis, in short, asks secularization theorists not only to produce “evidence of transfor- mation” (p. 17) from sources other than philosophies of history but also to show when the world was ever “desecularized'"(p. 29). (Blumenberg’s ingenious argument in Chapter 4, Part, about the rote of eschatology in carly Christian thought, attempts to obviate the latter possibility. Suffice it to say here, Blumenberg’s strategy is co show that the idea of a desecularized world was “worldly"*from the stare) In contesting the secularization chesisin these two different yet related ways, Blumenberg realized several of his broader strategic purposes. First ofall, the reoccupation thesis enabled him to read extremism — in, whatever absolutist form — out of his conception of the “modern” ‘world, That maneuver, of course; fit in nicely with his corollary concep- tion of the relationship between modernity and the moderation of true Enlightenment. As he subtly observed, “Thus the moder phenomenon {interpreted as secularization) of the reaccupation of vacant answer posi tions is not bound specificaly to the spiritual structure of [the modern] epoch” (p. 69; his emphasis}. Hence, just as Lowith could regard modern philosophers of history as representative spokesmen forthe modem age, so Blumenberg could regard themas illegimate spokesmen whose views, temporarily, delayed che emergence of truly modem val- ucsin histo Second ofall the reoccupation thesis allowed Blumenkerg to dstin- guish (pp. 58,97) what he called the impulse toward “human self empowerment” — thinking thatis epistemologically absolutistand gives riseto agnostic-like deification of man — from the condition of “human. 158 Bluwenberg and Seoutariation self-assertion" — historically ciccumscribed thinking that recognizes the limits of rationality and is, therefore, epistemologically moderate with- ‘out being, however, any less humane. Clearly, as Robert Wallace has observed, Blumenberg identified completely with the latter concep- tion'* — which js to say, that self-assertion is Blumenberg’s conceptual shorthand for values he regarded as moderateand enlightened. Finally, and in che same vein, Blumenberg associated the lagic of self- ‘empowerment with the presumptuous “modern” doctrine of “ine- vitable progress” in history. By contrast, he linked his own notion of self-assertion with the more modest idea of “possible progress” in his- tory. Ic is, of course, the philosophers of history and scientific absolutises who push for the former and spokesmen for true Enlight- enmentwho areinclined toward theater. All this, co be sure, is fairly familiar scuff. Iesounds, at worst, like 2 more sophisticated German version of Peter Gay’s thesis about the Enlightenment and, at best, like the call Max Weber made for scien- tific self-clarification in his famous essays on science and politics as, vocations. If modern man only had more patience and confidencein the long-term prospects for reason; ifhe only were more self-conscious about the possibilities of inquiry; ifonly he could “free” himself “from the canon” that he must possess the competence co answer all the “great questions” of history immediatly (p. 65-6), hen the modern world’s legit- imacy would nocbein question. But the legitimacy of the modem age was in question — and Blumenberg knew that, as did his detractors, whose criticisms of che 1966 edition of The Legitimacy provoked Blumenberg into developing a more sophisticated version of the reoccupation thesis in the second edi- tion of the book. In advancing this refined version of the thesis, Blumenberg raised a set of very different questions about how the pro- cess of secularization should be interpreted. The remainder of this essay addresses the issues raised by those questions. ‘A.curious sentence in The Legitimacy offers a convenient pointof depar- ‘ure for our purpases here. The sentence runs: “I have represented [the reoccupation phenomenon] too onesidedly as being due toa lack of crit calintensity [on the partof many thinkersin the beginning afthe modern age] and have not referred often enough to the importance. .of the) Hi. See editorial nate 6 p02 of The Legitimacy, LawreneDichey 139 ‘residual needs’ (that explain why the reoccupation phenomenon should have occurred avall in the modern world)” (p. 65). Not wishing to repeat che Enlightenment’s mistake of ignoring the role non-rational as, well as irrational needs play in man’s conception of reality {p. 64; cf. note 1, p.xxxi), Blumenherg proceeds to explain more fully just how he con- ceived the interplay between the ideas of residual need and re-occupa- tion. To interpret Blumenberg correctly on this matter, we must remember thar initially he disputed the secularization theorists at the point where they (allegedly) mistook the phenomenon of reoccupation for one of transformation. Because of his own reading of the secularization pro- cess, Blumenberg could reject the transformation argument because, given its own “substantialistic premises,” it could not establish continuity between Christian and modem modes of thought and value (pp. 29, 60} And yet, Blumenberg admitted that on another level — on the level of functions instead of substances — there was continuity between the two sets of values, Thus, his staternent: “The continuity of history across the epochal threshold [separating the Christian and modern ages] lies notin the permanence of ideal substances” but rather in “a functional reoccupation that creates the appearance of a substantial identity lasting through the process of secularization" {pp. 48, 60,89). Or, ashe also put it, the “identity upon which the secularization thesis rests is nor one of contents butone of functions" (p. 64). According to Wallace, who provides a useful introduction to The Legit ‘macy, the “contrast of content with function is what ultimately distin- guishes Blumenberg’s model {of reoccupation| from the secularization. theory” (p.xxvi. But does i? For as Wallace himself perceptively points oue (pp. xxv- xvi), Blumenberg encounters a problem while wying co incorporate the residual need argument into the framework of the reoccupation thesis, ‘The problem is that once reoccupation is defined in functional terms, itbecomes very difficult to make conceptual sense of Blumenberg's idea of residual need. On the one hand, thar need may very well be a carty- over froma previous age chat has forced itself onto carriersin the newage (p. 78). In Blumenberg’s scheme, we must refrain ftom giving into this needif self-assertion isto become che governing principle ofthe modem age. On the other hand, the need may, in Wallace's words, “naturally arise as part of the project of ‘selfassertion’ ” itself (p. xxv). This need, 160 Rlumenbareand Seeleriation Blumenberg implies, requires our attention. But how do we know, without recourse to a philosophy of history of our own, which need is legiimace and which one nor? Why, for example, shauld the need which underlies the idea of “inevitable progress” be interpreted in terms of amodern reoccupation of a Christian position while the need which informs the idea of “probable progress” be interpreted as a legicimace expression of program of human selF-assertion? Blumenberg's problems with the reoccupation-residual need inter- play do not stop there. For in che process of anticipating possible objections to his “functional reoccupation” argument he gave the reoccupation thesis a linguistic curn, one which he presented while dis- cussing something he chose to call “linguistic secularization” (pp. 98, 104,109). As this further refinement of the reoccupation thesis goes, functional reoceupation can be explained as the result of linguistic carryovers from one epoch to another (pp. 77-89). In this connec: tion, the process that secularization theorists explain in terms of substantialistic continuity, Blumenberg interprets in terms of 2 per- sistance from one epoch to another of sacral linguistic elements which have, simply, oudived the epoch in which they originated (pp. 77-78), Blumenberg argues, however, that because “epochs” generally experi- ence a “deficiency of language” {p. 78, 104) in their early phases, it becomes necessary for them to make “recourse to the traditional stock of means of [theological] expression in constructing a secular termi- nology” (p. 78; f. 92). In this way, Blumenberg suggests, “a world of {sacral] expressions” persisted overthe “epochal threshold” tharsepa- tated the Christian and madera ages(p. 77). The linguistic secularization argument has two obvious im- plications. First, it explains functional reoccupation in terms of the “acute lack of [linguistic] means” which every new epach faces when it thas to give expression to its awn perception of “the novel state of [its] alfaits” (p. 104). And, secondly, it defines the human inclination for constancy of linguistic expression as a functional need. As Blu- menberg succincily putit, “The constancy of language isan index of a constant function for consciousness bur not of an identity of content” fp. 82). With this last formulation, Blumenberg has succeeded in bringing theideas of reoccupation, residual need, functional reoccupation, and linguistic secularization inco meaningful conceptual relationship with ‘each other. But from this point on Blumnenberg is both tentative and LaarenceDichey 16 confusing as to what he wishes to do with the reoceupation thesis now tharithas been formulated in terms of inguistic secularization. To that end, his argument seems to go in three different directions. First, he seems to regard the recourse some moderns made to the vocabulary of theologyas ‘acover" (p. 78) to “mask” or “hide” the radicalism ofnew modes of thought, value and behavior from their more traditionally- minded audiences. On those terms, Blumenberg suggests, the secularization thesis might be understood more as a process of con- cealmentthan as one of transformation. Butthere a problem arises, for thacthesis would require Blumenberg to present an audience-oriented. definition of residual need. If he makes that “move,” however, then his argument, as one astute critic has observed, provides the secularization cheorists with the opportunity co salvage their chesis by claiming thatall they are askingiis for the modern age to disclose — ina hermeneutic sense — the Christian background, linguistic or other- wise, of some of its most essential ideas. Such a disclosure, as Gadamer has contended (pp. 16-19}, would scem to be perfectly consistent with, Blumenberg’s own program of self-assertion (p. 138). Second, and this constitutes a variation on the “cover” thesis, Blumenberg presents linguistic secularization as ‘an intentional style" which consciously seeks to establish linguistic relations to thesa- cred for the purposes of “provocation” and “literary sensationalism” (pp. 104, 110). Here the arguments author-oriented. It holds, moreo- ver, that ‘the phenomenon of linguistic secularization” often arises in situations where thinkers’ “borrowing|s] from the dynastic language treasures of theology” can be explained in terms of what he called “ ‘background metaphorics' " (pp. 28, 93-95). With this idea, Blu- ‘menberg meant to draw attention to the way, for example, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and any number of German romantics used familiar theo- logical images (¢.g.,the lawgiver) in unusual contextsin order to create ambivalences in the mind of their audiences which could then be rher- orically exploited by the author for the purpose of developing antitheological conceptions of the world (pp. 110, 104). Because the language of theology could be used for different rhetorical purposes, Blumenberg argues that any claim made by secularization theorists about the rote of language in the secularization process must be sub- stantiated by “an analysis of irs function” in specific historical contexts {p. 104). Ashe surimed icup, “One will be able to [solve the problem of function] only in the favorable case where such a process can be concrete- 162 Rlumentingend Sectarization ly documented” (p. 78; my emphasize to draw attention to the fact he Blumenberg does not think such cases exist in history for this process. See, €.g.. pp. 78 and 469). On the surface, this kind of recommendation would seem co please scholars who believe the disciplines of history and of historical context are essential to the study of ideas in history. But even here Blumenberg hedges, for elsewhere in The Legitimacy he develops a third argument that undermines this “move" towards history and the embrace of his- torical scholarship. The point of departure for this argument is Blumenberg’s claim that the human need for constancy of linguistic expression can be ex- plained in terms of a dynamic internal to the process of epochal transi- tion itself (p. 89}. In its carly stages, he argues, the modern age became linguistically “overextended” (pp. 48-49, 89}. That is, many of its spokesmen felc obliged to answer the “great questions” in order to show they were “a match for chem” (p. 48). In this way, Blumenberg continues, “the modem age found it impossible to decline to answer questions about the totality of history... In this process, the idea of progress is driven to a level of generality that overextends its origi- nal, ... and objectively limited range as an assertion. [Thus] . .. che to- tality of history . .. is drawn into the function for consciousness that had previously been performed by the framework of the salvation sto- ry" (pp. 48-49} In this context, Blumenberg contends, the modem mind “is forced to perform a function chat was originally defined by a system that is alien to ic” (p. 49}. While wying to perform this function, however, the modern ‘mind was confronted by the limits of its own rationality, Soon it became “disappointed” and “embarrassed” by these limits (pp. 35, 88, 89). AS Blumenberg presents it, the paradoxical cosequence was an “impa- rience” that expressed itself in an even more intense and urgencdrive to make human progress in history not only “inevitable” but “infinite” as well(pp. 50-51, 84). Icis crucial to realize chat, according to Blumenberg, the acceleration, of history, which gives rise to the idea of infinice progression, has nothing 10 da with the phenomenon of reoccupation (pp. 34-85, 49-51). It does not, as he put it, “efface the difference beeween the idea of progress and eschatology” (p. 50). cannot be interpreted, therefore, intermsof"“see- ular millenarianism” (p. 50}, Rather, for Blurenberg, the acceleration of history is a specifically modern form of resignation (pp. 35,51,87}. As he Lawrence Dictey 163 notes, the idea of the infinity of progress “is che painful actualization of the {realizarian of the] unalterable disparity between che status of (man as|apoine[in time] ...and the destiny of man asaspecies-being] which allows him {to experience] the transcendental infinite .. . chrough the {idea of the] infinitude of progress" (p. $4). On these terms, he notion of infinicude translates into a form of rationalicy that teaches man that, while he undoubtedly is the “maker” of history, he is just as assuredly notthe “subject” of history (pp. 34-35, 478). Thus, Blumenberg writes theidea of infinite progress... hasasafeguarding function for the actual individual... Ifthere were an immanent final goal of history, then those who believe they know it [Voegelin’s gnostic intellectuals) and claim t promote its atainment ‘would be legitimized in using all others, .. as mere means[o theirends|, Infinite progress... .corresponds more than any- ‘hingelse tothe only regulative principle thaecan make history humanly bearable, which is thar all dealings must be consti- ‘axed that chrough them people do not become mere rears. (p35) ‘This is fairly clear; but then there is the declaration char undermines much of what Blamenberg has justsaid. He writes: ‘Our disconcentwith progress is discontent notonly with itste- sultsbutalso with the indefinite character fitscourse, the lack of distinctive points, intermediate goals, oreven final ends.(p. 85) Now thar statement opens the way for Blumenburg’s re-legiti ization of teleology in the modern world, a teleology which Blumen- berg means to link with needs associated with the modem program of self-assertion. Blumenberg admitted as much when he conceded both that the project of self-asscrtion may require “an external sanction” (p. 61) and that it represents for him a “countermove” which aims at put- ting man back in touch with his “potential” and “purposes” in a “minimalist” sense (pp. 177-8). On these terms, Blummenberg’s concep tion of self-assertion is itself teleological without being, however, unhistoricalin its conception of teleology itself. If much of this sounds like Kant, it is because there are close parallels berween what scholars have recently called Kant’s “reconceived teleo- logy” (cg, P. Riley and ¥. Yovel) and Blumenberg's conception of self assertion. The language, to be sure, is different; but the conceptual dy- 164 Mamenborgand Sculrietion namic that governs the two thinkers’ conception of “the self is quite similar. Both are determined to avoid identifying the assertions ofthe self with the unreflective naturalism of pantheism and/or the indulgent subjectivism of romantic expressivism (p. 215); both recognize “thatide- as of existential fulfillment cannot be objective” (pp. 86, 138), both pro- pose to reverse the emphasis in Augustine's “negative conception of ‘progress’ " inorder to increase "the chances ofthe good being realized” (p- 58); and both wish to exploit the idea of the * ‘unfinished world? "for the symbolic purpose of promoting ethical-epistemological moderation inthe present (p. 214), So, both use the idea of telealogy in an ethical (ie., rainirnalist} sense, to direct men towards “the possibility of morality” in a voluntarist and practical sense (pp. 212-214, n. 51; 613-614). Both, thinkers, in short, write in a tradition in which the prospect of realizing the teh of the transcendental subjecc is at-once existendally open and historically circumscribed — whichis to say, hey write in the «radition of, German Idealism and conceive the selfin terms of the idea of self-realiz- ing teleology it history.'5 (For thisidea, see my Hegel: Religion, Economics cand the Poits of Spire, Cambridge, 1987)), Now, we have known for some time that there are many Christian eschatological aspects in the German Idealist tradition (eg., M. H. Abrams). And anyone who has read Kant’s Religion Within. the Limits of Reason Alone knows that there is a good deal of eschatology in Kane's thought as well, especially after 1784. Itis, T think, most revealing thatin The Legitimacy Blumenberg goes out of his way to prevent this tradition from intruding upon his argument, an argument whose strength lies in its capacity to persuade readers that che Christian eschatological tradi tion is wholly Augustinian (“theacentric” in A. Nygren’s terms) and nev- er synergistic and accommodationist “egocentric” in Nygren’s terms) From whar Blumenberg says in The Legitimacy (pp. 58-59), icisevident that he knows about this tradition. By his reckoning, itis a tradition that runs from Pelagius co Lessing (p. 53; we know, however, that the cradition runs from the Alexandrian fathers, chrough Joachim, ro cerain groups of Calvinists and German Pietists, all of whom were accommodationist in cheir eschacological chinking). And Blumenberg knows (p. #0) chat Kant, in his self-proclaimed capacity as a"“philosophical millenarian” is 15. Icshould be noted chat Ernst Bloch’s notion of “anticipatory consciousness" ‘may be discussed in terms of this eradicion as well. Thar realization considerably complicates the task of putting a political label an Blumbenberg's thesis. ausence Dickey — 165 often cited as a key figure in this tradition. Yet, Blumenberg insists char while Lessing comes out of his tradition (pp. 54, 421), Kant does not(pp. 35-36). ‘The distinction Blumenberg draws between Lessing and Kant is no minor matter. For icimplies that Lessing and Kant represented cwo very different modes of epochal discourse. Is that possible? Ificis, why not ar- ‘gue the poinc directly rather than by inference? And why, then, mark the epochal threshold becween the Christian and modern ages with Cusa and Bruno (Part IV of The Lagitimacy) rather than with Lessingand Kant? Questions such as these bring me to the final point of this review. For there isan obvious answer tothem — which is, thatthroughoutThe Legit ‘macy Blumenberg skillfully, albeit predictably, avoids dealing with issues which would require him to discuss the rale Protestantism, in its liberal accommodationist mode, played in the emergence of the “modern” idea of gradual (ie., moderate) progress in history. Despite the advan- tages this strategy of silence has for his thesis (c.g. it permits him to pres- ent Christianity as a theology of fear rather than one of hope), ithas one serious drawback: namely, it puts Blumenberg in the uncomfortable po- sition of having co deny that there are““witnesses to changes of epach” (p. 469}. There were, I would argue, plenty of witnesses to the epochal change Blumenberg is writing about in The Legitimacy. But they cend co be Protestants — ones who lived after 1600 and who used the language of theology to encourage their fellows to “use” the world without “abus- ing” it. Iris with this group, not with Cusa and Bruno, that Blummenberg must deal if he is convince us of his thesis. Had he followed the advice (pp. 78, 104) he gave co the secularization theorists — that they need to do more historical work on the function of theological language in spe-

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